


Neither Sinners in Heaven, Nor Saints in Hell

by FireEye



Category: Saints Row
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 14:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13125408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Gat and the Boss and complicated feelings on Heaven after Hell.





	Neither Sinners in Heaven, Nor Saints in Hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykingdomstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/gifts).



At first, he thought she was pissed at him for up and vanishing on her during the ride home.  A little misplaced, since it was God that done it, but at least he could have understood – Gat wouldn’t have been too happy after going on a rampage through Hell to get her back if she up and ascended the mortal plane of reality without him either.

It was becoming clear pretty fuckin’ quickly that it was something else entirely.

She wasn’t eating. She wasn’t sleeping.  Not in his bed, anyway.  Which... okay, it was _her_ bed, but that was being pedantic.  The few times he caught up with her, she was broody and miserable.  Far as Johnny knew, she was flatly avoiding him, only so far he hadn’t been able to corner her long enough to find out why.

Everyone else was of a mind to stay out of it.

There were only so many places for her to hide on the ship; she took to retreating within the Simulation.  The sessions grew longer and more frequent, until she was spending all her waking hours in a digital slumber.

Gat’s bare thread of patience snapped.

“Yo, Kinzie, need a favor.”

“ _Not_ getting involved.”

“A'ite.  Miller, you’re up.  Patch me through.”

“Ah.”

Matt’s gaze was drawn to the pods, all empty save for one.

“ _Matt_.”

Gat’s voice carried that tone to it that wasn’t something to be argued with.  Neither was the Boss, but he banked on her not being exactly awake to argue to sway things in his favor.

“I....”  Matt’s shoulders slumped.  “Yes... alright.”

Putting aside what he had been working on within the panel in front of him, he pulled up the Simulation control. 

“You do realize if you drop in on her private playtime, she... might not be happy to see you?”

Johnny scoffed.

“Can’t say I fuckin’ care; patch me the fuck through.”

“If she asks,” Matt told him, “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Trust me, she ain’t gonna ask.”

The unnerving sensation of weightlessness ripped through Johnny, like being dropped from his body, as the Simulation pod transferred his consciousness to digital input.

~*~

The Simulation had taken on a whole new edge.  A large bulk of it still resembled the districts of virtual Steelport he’d become accustomed to while running with her against Zinyak.  But the buildings were abandoned and decayed, and vehicles lay wrecked and abandoned on roads that had deep gouges ripped out of them.  The ground had been singed and the shores were scorched by lava.  The acrid odor of brimstone saturated the air.  Amid an inexplicable horde of old familiar enemy flags were leather-skinned and bat-winged demons and the hulking servants of the Lord of Darkness.

She was at the center of it all.  Pistol in one hand, sword in the other.  A whirlwind of fire and ice and gunpowder.

Gat’s avatar rippled into existence amid the chaos, and he landed with a the ground hard enough that it rippled outward, causing the earth to crack.  The virtual legions to pause in their tracks, but he didn’t care about them in the least.

His eyes were on her as she spun towards him, breathing heavily.  Rage simmered beneath the surface, barely constrained, and it reflected in her eyes.

“The fuck is up with you?”

“Leave me alone,” she breathed.

“To hell with that.”

“Just leave me _the fuck alone_ , Johnny.”

“Let me tell you somethin’, I did _not_ go and turn down immortal paradise with my girl in Heaven to get ditched by my girl down here on Earth.”

“Earth’s _gone_.”

“Fucking _whatever_.”

She sucked in a deep breath.  Then another.  The weapons slipped from her hands, vanishing into bits before they hit the ground.  Tears welled up in her eyes, and Gat glared down at her, unmoved.

The Boss swung the first punch.

Gat rose to the occasion.

They played the game until they were both battered and burned and bloody, lungs raw and eyes stinging with virtual sweat.  By the time fatigue started to set in and everything slowed down, the city around them had crumbled away, and they were the only living souls in a world destroyed.

Blocking a shabby punch, Gat simply shoved her back.  Her snarl died in her throat.

Instead, eyes wide, she shunted back from him.  Her hands flew to cover her mouth; deep within her eyes was some strange mix of awestruck and terrified and longing, and _it didn’t make any damned sense_.  Drawn toward her, he froze as she raised a hand to brush lightly against the iridescent white feathers.  As soon as he realized they were there, the wings fragmented and dissolved into the wind.

A digital artifact of the physical run through Satan’s playground.

Wistful, she stared into the sky after them.

Gat bit back an exhausted chuckle.

Life got so stupid, sometimes.

Taking his chances, he stepped in close.  Staring down at her, Johnny rested a hand on her hip, and hers came to cover it.

“Tell you another thing, I didn’t go down and drag your sorry ass out of the depths of Hell for you to go and throw yourself right back into it.”

~*~

She gasped a deep breath as she fell back into her body.  The phantom pain of the Simulation ached through her chest, radiating out into her limbs.  In the next pod over, Gat gave a waking groan and a stretch, shaking the Simulation out of his head.

Without a word, he stepped out of the pod after her to circle her as she flexed her sore limbs.  Her head turned to track his movement warily from the corner of her eye.  When he finally chanced it and gathered her in his arms, she didn’t protest, but folded her arms up between them and tucked her face against his throat, under his chin.

For a long moment, he simply rocked his weight from one foot to the other.  Then he grabbed one of her hands from where they rested flat against his chest, and pulled her towards the doors.

Trailing behind, she followed him below decks, but he didn’t let go of her hand until he had her pressed against the cargo container that made up the walls of their personal world, with her arms wrapped around his neck.

~*~

Gat traced the old, faded burn that marred her shoulder.

It didn’t expressly _fix_ anything.

But it was a nice diversion long as it lasted.

And if she wasn’t going to talk, _well_...

Fuck it, he was used to talking enough for the both of them.

“Thought you’d be happy.  You only been talkin’ up _God_ and _Heaven_ and shit since I known you.  Fuck, at worst, I was gettin’ worried you’d get all _I told you so_ on my ass.”

There was a hitch in her breathing.  Lifting himself onto his elbow, Johnny pressed his mouth below her ear.

“Why didn’t you...?”

Leaning back, he dragged her hair back over her shoulder.  “Hrm?”

“Why didn’t you stay?”

“Thought I did stay.  Been having a rough couple of weeks to show for it.”

“No, I mean...”  His eyebrow raised as she struggled for the words, “You said God offered you a choice, Johnny, why the hell didn’t you take it?”

“I don’t see God goin’ ‘round judging me for my choices.”  Gat squinted at her in the dim light.  “Or is that it, you just pissed off at me?  ‘Cause all that time you spent down on your knees all your life and He went and took five minutes out of His busy day to talk to me and not you?”

“Oh _Fucking Christ_...”

She shoved herself up, a dangerous tremor wracking her shoulders.  Johnny followed her, steadily, and a jolt of alarm shot through him.

“Oh, don’t-... don’t you fuckin’...” Gat scowled, too late by far, and scrubbed at her eyes with his thumb, as though that ever made a difference, “start crying on me.”

Sighing harshly, he dragged her up against his chest, cradling her in his arms to weather the storm.

“Don’t you even get it?  I always thought...”  Her words were a jumble, snippets of thought, given voice.  “Love _redeems_ , Johnny.  I thought... if you loved her enough, maybe... I never wanted you to...”

She gasped in a breath, and he simply held her until she stilled.  Her voice grew small, far away.  “Why didn’t you _stay_?”

“Didn’t feel like it.”

Then, threading together the bits and pieces, Gat laughed.

“So that’s what it is, huh?” he asked, “You thought I’d... what, die and go be in Heaven with Aisha for the rest of eternity?”

She didn’t answer.

“And then where would that’ve left you?”

Then again, she didn’t really have to.

He knew her too well for that.

“Oh, you _stupid_ fucking-...”

Johnny clamped his arms down tight around her.  She gasped into his shoulder, stifling the strained remnant of a sob, and he shook his head.

Without another thought, he rolled back down to the blankets, onto his back.  Dragged along with him, she squeaked in alarm, and threw out her hands, catching the blanket in one and his shoulder in the other, falling on top of him.  Staring up at her, he cracked a smile.

“The fuck would you even do without me around anyway, hmm?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but eased down to her elbow, resting her cheek against his chest, and he draped an arm loose around her hips.  Her fingers traced ink, and her eyes drifted closed.

“So if we’re banned from Hell,” she murmured against his skin, “And there’s no place in Heaven for people like us... where the fuck does that leave us?”

“Yeah, guess we jus’ gonna live forever, ain’t we?”

She scoffed at him, and Gat chuckled.

“Never worried about it much before, not gonna start now.”

Stirring, she propped herself up over him.  He studied her face; she was staring into space somewhere around his shoulder, and her mouth moved around silent words.

Johnny waited until she found the ones she was looking for.

“You don’t think Aisha would’ve wanted you to-...”

Then clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Aisha died to save my ass.  I ain’t throwing that away.”

It made her sulk, but that was a risk he was willing to take.  He slipped his elbow over the back of her neck, pulling her flat against him to capture her mouth.  She melted into the kiss, and he smiled at the tiny croon that it evoked as his teeth scraped her jaw.

Sure, it didn’t fix everything.

But, for a little while at least, it felt like it did.

~*~

He dropped the board flat on the floor, and the pointy thing on top of it.  It danced and spun back and forth.

“Yeah, yeah, can you get me in touch with the guy upstairs?”

W-R-O-N-G-N-U-M-B-E-R

“Fine, then can you ring big red for me?”

T-H-A-T-L-I-N-E-H-A-S-B-E-E-N-D-I-S-C-O-N-N-E-C-T-E-D

“So it’s just you and me?”

YES

“Got any good advice on how to deal with women?”

NO

“Figures.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...this is one of those, "Man, I wish I could write it as well as it deserves" prompts, because as much as I wibble back and forth on GooH, I can't deny the endings inspire _feelings_. Well... the endings and something about Gat's wardrobe.
> 
> But I hope it came out at least half as well as in my head, and that you enjoy reading it. Happy Yuletide! <3


End file.
